Edge of Sanity
by HuntedthisNight
Summary: The last time Hogwarts had a transfer student it was 250 years ago but there she was, sitting amongst the other students garbed in the yellow on black of Hufflepuff House, Kagome Higurashi. But there's far more to this young witch than meets the eye. And just what secrets is she hiding behind that benign smile. A rare unique tale. Harry Potter x Inuyasha. Rating to Change in time.
1. Chapter 1

_** Edge of Sanity** is a Harry Potter x Inuyasha crossover the likes of which have never been seen before. It is set entirely differently than most crossovers that have graced fanfiction. _

_It'll be a pleasure to read. _

_-.-_

_thoughts_

_*****mental conversations*****_

**_amplified thoughts/meanings_**

* * *

**SETTING: YEAR 1996 [6th Year Hogwarts]**

_*****The cycle repeated  
As explosions broke in the sky  
All that I needed  
Was the one thing I couldn't find*****_

It was the snickering that caught her attention as she entered the Potions Classroom. Snickering and a head crowned in pale, nearly white, hair that was lowered as the speaker hissed something at his comrades and got them going again. There was no doubt in her mind that they were talking about her. Whatever she had done to catch the attention of one Draco Malfoy was entirely beyond her, the blonde had barely said a single word to her in the entire month that she had found Hogwarts as her new home, but he seemed to have gotten it into his head that tormenting her was absolutely fine and did so whenever possible. Maybe it happened to be the fact that she was the first transfer student to Hogwarts in more than 250 years.

Lips pushed themselves tightly together barely resisting the urge to respond in kind. She had had enough of that when she had been younger, she had heard herself called bitch and a handful of other demeaning times during her tenure of repairing the accursed gemstone by the individual she had once thought that she'd spend the rest of her life with. It was something that she had thought, had hoped even, wouldn't be repeated when she had found herself half way across the world in the county of Alnwick in Scotland. To make matters worse as having always been a hot tempered individual who took no guff from other people having to keep her mouth shut was a task in and of itself.

_I wonder if the ass would be so mouthy if I..._

"Miss. Higurashi." The low silken baritone, rumbling from behind where she had stopped to glare at Draco Malfoy and his cronies, was a shock. "Do_** sit down**_."

Swallowing the yelp, and then just barely, Kagome Higurashi, guardian of the accused Shikon no Tama that hung around her neck the gemstone clasped within the grip of a dragon-like paw carved from amber so dark that it was nearly red at the end of a chain of silver and gold woven together, spun on her heel. Azure tinted eyes, a deep sapphire blue, meet with a pair eyes the color of coal, a deep fathomless black that resembled pitch in how they reflected everything and gave not a single clue of what thoughts were going through the man's head. The mirror-like quality reminded her vaguely of Sesshomaru's impassive gaze. And like the dai-youkai, or great demon, the sour tempered Potions Master was intimidating even if he was doubtlessly human.

Even so her glare still heated from glaring at the annoying twit that was the blonde Malfoy was as effective as a water off a duck's back. In fact it was returned at a worse level even as the Potions Master crossed his arms over his chest, an impatient scowl dominating his features. Rather than shiver in fear as most other students would, Kagome felt heat flush her skin in embarrassment and a bit of anger.

"Sorry... sir." Those coal tinted eyes narrowed before with a grunt Snape, Professor Severus Snape, swept past her, forcing her to seat down in the closest chair, in a billow of robes.

Settling her backpack down on the table Kagome considered the Professor's back for a moment as he snapped at one pair of boys, a dark haired youth and a red head, to pay attention this time in class. Professor Snape. A **_tainted _**human but human nonetheless. She could sense the taint, like how a snake could taste a scent, but it was contained to the man's forearm and except for his dour personality didn't seem to hamper the mind. So she would keep quiet for now. If nothing else she had learnt during her struggles in feudal Japan it was self preservation. Particularly around magic.

Magic. Lips quirked slightly with how easily she thought of the term now, what when three months ago she had fainted in her mother's kitchen upon receiving the letter to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Anyone else would have balked at the knowledge that magic really _**did**_ exist. However, she had spent not months but years fighting to survive against demons. Magic wasn't that far fetched. In fact as she had come to learn magic was very much her miko abilities, they weren't something that had been granted to her through the whims of a fickle god. Rather she had inherited them.

Kotodama magic. Japanese magic. Whatever one called the magic that thrummed through her veins could be traced by all the way back to the ancient Onmyōdō families that had begun to materialize throughout the 5th and 6th centuries to assist the Emperor or anyone powerful enough to afford their price. It was an **_old _**magic. Kotodama literally meant "word spirit" for it was a well held believe that "good words" caused positive affects and "bad words" caused negative affects and that these sounds can magically affect objects, and that ritual word usages can influence the environment, body, mind, and soul. In that sense it was almost exactly the same as the magic which had been wielded by the druids many centuries ago. Kotodama was taught in Mahoutokoro however she had not stayed in Japan because her mother had believed it was best to distance herself from the past.

However, there was no denying that this magic had identified that she had _**never**_ been Kikyo's incarnation. She was the other's descendent, possibly through an unknown male relative. Maybe even Kaede for young women training to become mikos were allowed their own families before becoming a full trained miko-woman in feudal Japan. This belief of virginity for their powers to work was just a lie to make them appear all that more unusual. The only two who had disbelieved this had been Inuyasha and Kaede themselves but they had been so caught up with the distress of Kikyo that even now Kagome wondered if they'd have assaulted any girl that vaguely resembled the other "miko" in feudal Japan.

_To think it was less than a year ago. _This thought, as it trickled through Kagome Higurashi's mind, was swiftly shoved aside for there was no need to lament.

Even if only eight months had passed since she had dragged her bloodied body from the confines of the time travelling well and stepped within modern Japan once again. She had never thought that she was ever going to escape from the depths of feudal Japan and find herself back within the depths of modern Japan, in Tokyo. After all she had been a naïve little girl in the depths of feudal Japan. One that had fought demons. Had fought the hanyou turned dai-youkai, or great demon, Naraku. She had been attacked, kidnapped, verbally and sometimes even physically abused by the one that she had once thought would be her partner until death claimed them. Only to find herself betrayed when Inuyasha had turned to Kikyo and she had become nothing more than a replacement.

But what made less sense was what she had found upon coming back to modern Japan.

She had only aged _**one**_ year. She did not understand how it worked but though it seemed she had spent close to 2, neighboring into 3, years within the depths of feudal Japan only a single year had passed since her 15th birthday when she had first been dragged through the well and now. A year and six months if one wanted to take into consideration that she had only now just begun to feel like her old self. So instead of been what 17 or 18 years of age, although mentally she certainly felt to be that old, physically she was only 16 edging into her 17th birthday.

"Hey," the voice tore at Kagome's attention. A vague part of her wondered if she ignored the person."Hey. Is this seat taken?"

Or maybe not.

Breathe escaping through tightly pursed lips she turned and jolted as it wasn't the green and silver of Slytherin robes that greeted her blue eyes but rather the tawny and red that marked the House of Gryffindor. Not her yellow and black, oh what a joke that she ended up in there, of the Hufflepuff House that she herself happened to be a member of. Kagome blinked as azure eyes lifted to the honeyed tawny of the other girl's eyes. A little "dust mop" of chocolate brown coloration hair, tangles and curls that looked as if they could be a true hassle to try to tame, had been pulled back in a messy ponytail. If Kagome was any good at guessing ages she would make this person out to be roughly her apparent age, maybe older or younger.

As it was then, Kagome was immediately suspicious. Since she had arrived here over the Christmas holidays Kagome had had at best the bare minimum of interactions with both the student and teacher body that inhabited the domain of Hogwarts. By and large the only student, and quite literally out of the blue, who had tried to interact with her was that annoying blonde Malfoy who insisted in letting her know that she stood well beneath his status as an apparent "Half Blood", where he came up with that was beyond her, and his cronies who seemed to take pleasure in annoying her as well.

"Can I help you?" Her voice was clipped.

But compared to Snape's dour tones she probably sounded like she was actually excited to have a stranger sitting at her table for the brunette grinned. "You're the new student, Kagome Higurashi right?"

_No I am Albus Dumbledore in disguise._ The barbed retort didn't leave Kagome's lips as eyebrows furrowed. "Yes, I am Kagome Higurashi. And you are?"

* * *

**NOTE:**

Okay so Kagome spent 3 years travelling through feudal Japan however when she returned to modern Japan she had **aged only 1 year** - this makes her 16 years old. I decided that this would be a time warp due to the time travelling well, think of it as travelling to another world / dimension entirely.

Kotodama magic - I thought about mikos and virginity and what not and decided no, no it won't work. So I introduced mikos as not a god given ability - such as the oracles of Rome - but rather an inherited ability. This gives rise to kotodama magic which is very old and very much, as said, akin to druids / elemental magic as it is more word based than wand / rune based.

Amber - the dragon forepaw pendant that holds the Shikon no Tama. Amber is considered the fifth element, the binding element. It governs and binds together earth, air, fire and water, and in a sense it the ultimate source of those elements. Some of its powers include: Luck, healing, strength, protection, beauty, love. **Red Amber, **as like that encasing the Shikon, are said to contain or destroy negative emotions; calms the spirit.

Hufflepuff House - Hufflepuff is the most inclusive among the four houses valuing - Dedication, Hard Work, Fair play, Patience, Kindness, Tolerance, and people Unafraid of Toil - rather than a particular aptitude in its members.


	2. Chapter 2

-.-

_thoughts_

_*****mental conversations*****_

**_amplified thoughts/meanings_**

* * *

So **_this_** was the exchange student.

If the Potions Master, Severus Snape, hadn't quite snapped at the petite witch she supposed she never would have known. Garbed within the confines of a traditional black on black robe the witch had brushed thick strands of ebony black hair backwards and which happened to fall slightly loose around her features. Almost casting her face into shadows as the other witch went about sorting out her items for the assignment. There was a sort of controlled method of the other's movements, professing that the other was battling with a temper or maybe against the urge to cry.

Given as to what she had overheard Malfoy saying, and which the Head of Slytherin House seemed more than content to ignore, Hermione Granger wouldn't think any less of the witch either way.

Nor for that matter would she lie. She, and for that matter almost everyone else, had known of the witch's arrival when Dumbledore had stood up and announced the witch's presence in the House of Hufflepuff but a month ago. It was hard _**not** _to notice someone when almost every single member of the student body happened to be speaking of the same thing and that thing didn't involve the Boy-Who-Lived. It wasn't jealousy no it was outright curiosity. A restless bookworm Hermione had researched the prospect of exchange students after that first faithful dinner when Malfoy had raised a scene about how unorthodox having a student transferred into Hogwarts... in the middle of term at that... happened to be.

Those books had stated that indeed such transfers were rare. Each of the different schools that taught magic were like schools in the Muggle world, as in neither one school happened to teach the same as its fellows. So a student taught in the Americas for example might have absolutely no idea the potions or spells that were considered customary within the depths of Hogwarts. More than a quarter millennia actually had passed since the last student had ever transfigured into Hogwarts... and that had only occurred because of the fact that back then the transfer student was facing death if they remained in Durmstrang Institute of Norway.

So with this thought in mind, Hermione Granger skirted around her usual desk to stand at the side of the desk were said exchange student was situated having been told to sit by one Potions Master himself.

"Can I help you?" Though the other witch didn't look at her there was no denying that the voice, tainted with an accent that Hermione couldn't place for she had never left the United Kingdom, was clipped. And yet more exhaustion than outright annoyance and so the clipped tone paled in comparison to some of the things Hermione had heard over her years in Hogwarts. Particularly in Potions.

"You're the new student, Kagome Higurashi right?"

**_That_ **drew a reaction.

The witch, she had to be older than Ron and Harry so putting her closer to Hermione's age due to her having used the Time Turner in her 3rd year, tensed ever so slightly. If Hermione herself didn't happen to be standing nearly overtop of the other witch, her bag resting but a few inches from the rough surface of the table as she sought permission to sit here, she supposed she wouldn't have noticed it. Or the slight shiver that caused one hand, the one gripping the cauldron, to almost slip from the rounded handles. But then the cauldron hit the table, not nearly loud enough to draw Snape's ever unwanted attention, and the exchange student shifted her weight to glance up at where Hermione was standing.

Immediately there were somethings that couldn't be ignored. The witch was obviously Asian. The other female possessed a roundness to her features that not even the chubbiest of European children could ever copy without looking fat while on this girl's face the roundness only made her more feminine. While beneath partially fallen eyelids that gave the impression of a sort of dull wittedness, despite herself Hermione took a moment to wonder if the other witch had been transferred here because she was slow minded, were a pair unusual eyes. Unusual in that they were far too blue against otherwise Oriental features. But then the eyelids lifted, giving such a brief glimpse of piercingly intense blue eyes that were cut into a hard evaluating gaze.

As quickly as it had disappeared the sleepy look settled over azure tinted eyes again. "Yes, I am Kagome Higurashi. And you are?"

"Hermione Granger."

* * *

KAGOME's heavy lidded bored gaze. She survived 3 years in feudal Japan, as said previously, but aged only a year when she returned to modern Japan. So she is still a child in a way however she has experienced things most adults would never have experienced. Hence I tried for a sort of jaded feel.

Short, yes, sorry. But I am studying for exams right now.


End file.
